Roberto de Mattei
Corrispondenza Romana
August 5, 2020
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun is
an eminent prelate who sincerely loves his country and the Church. Born in
Shanghai in 1932, ordained to the priesthood in the Salesian Order in 1961, he
was appointed Bishop by John Paul II in 1996 and created Cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2006. Between 1996 and
2009 he was coadjutor and subsequently Archbishop of the diocese of Hong Kong, No one knows better than he does the complexity of the political and religious
situation in China.
On January 9, 2016, Cardinal
Zen, today Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, voiced severe criticism of the Vatican policy towards China which has
evolved during the pontificate of Pope Francis. The Vatican reporter, Sandro
Magister sums up the situation in these terms: “Since
it has been in power, in fact, the Chinese Communist Party has wanted to set up
a Church submissive to itself and separate from Rome, with bishops appointed by
its own exclusive warrant and ordained without the approval of the Pope,
subjugated to a “Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association” that Benedict XVI
called “irreconcilable” with Catholic doctrine. An “official” Church,
therefore, on the brink of schism. Interwoven with an “underground” Church led
by bishops not recognized by Beijing and absolutely faithful to the Pope, who
however, pay the full price of clandestinity: oppression, surveillance, arrest,
abduction.”1.
Cardinal Zen
is the voice today that best represents this “subterranean” Church. “I am the voice of the voiceless not only to
protest against the Communist Authorities, but also to put certain questions to
our Roman Authorities. All these years actions were posited which offend the
doctrine and the discipline of our Church: illegitimate and excommunicated
bishops perform pontifical rites and sacred ordinations, legitimate bishops
take part in illegitimate Episcopal ordinations up to four times; almost the
total participation of the bishops of the official community at the National
Assembly of Catholic representatives. No word came from Rome! Don’t our
brothers in China have the right to be
confused and pose questions?”2
In a subsequent letter to the
entire College of Cardinals dated September 27, 2019, the Chinese Cardinal
accused the Secretary of State of encouraging: “the faithful in China to be
part of a schismatic Church (independent of the Pope and under the command of
the Communist Party)”; he concluded with
a dramatic question: “Can we watch
passively this murder of the Church in China by the ones who ought to be
protecting Her and defending Her from Her enemies?” 4
With these declarations
Cardinal Zen has aligned himself with many courageous witnesses to the faith,
starting with Cardinal Josef Mindszenty, who, on November 1, 1973, resisted
Paul VI to his face, by opposing, with respectful refusal, the Pope’s request
for his demission from the primatial archiepiscopal seat of Estergom. On November 8th of the same year,
Paul VI removed him from office, but the Cardinal was not silent and denounced
the Vatican Ostpolitik in his Memoirs Rusconi Editore, Milano 1975). Today the cause for his
beatification is underway.
Cardinal Zen, however, has
weakened the logic of his statements. In a recent interview to CNA he warned
against the “danger” of polemical interpretations of Vatican II, by declaring
that, after fifty years, “its light still leads
the Church through the darkness of her journey today.” 5
The Ostpolitik that
Cardinal Zen criticizes, is, in fact, fruit of the Second Vatican Council. This is historical evidence that does not
admit denials.
In
the years of the Second Vatican Council , from 1962 to 1965, Communism
constituted a threat to the Church and humanity never before seen in history.
The assembly of Council Fathers, gathered together to discuss relationships
between the Church and the modern world, did not say a word about Communism, despite
the fact that hundreds of them had asked for a solemn, public condemnation of
this scourge. Cardinal Zen asked that
the texts of the Council be rediscovered and defined them as the real fruit of
Vatican II. “Through those documents you hear the real voice of the Holy Spirit,
he said, and “the Holy Spirit of today does not contradict the Holy Spirit of
yesterday” .
The
Holy Spirit nonetheless did not raise His voice against Communism. Therefore
many historians and theologians are right, from Monsignor Gherardini
to Cardinal Brandmüller, when they say the magisterial value and the binding
authority of the conciliar texts has still all to be discussed, without
excluding the idea that many of those documents might end up one day in the
rubbish bin. But what is more important is that the Second Vatican Council is a
historical event which cannot be reduced to muddled and ambiguous texts. Its distinctive note is the spirit which moved
it: a spirit whereby the way in which doctrine had to be presented to the
faithful was more important than the doctrine itself.
Cardinal Zen
states: “I believe it would be very fruitful to read the opening sermon of
Vatican II by Pope John XXIII, where he explained the true meaning of
'aggiornamento': facing all the threats of modern civilization the Church must
not be afraid, but find the ways apt to show to the world the true face of
Jesus, the Redeemer of Man.”
Well, in that speech, which
opened the Second Vatican Council on October 11 1962, John XXIII explained that
“for the deposit of faith, the truths contained in our venerable doctrine, are
one thing; the fashion in which they are expressed, but with the same meaning
and the same judgment, is another thing.” The different fashion was the passage “from anathema to dialogue”. In the case of Communism, decades of
condemnation needed to be laid aside in order to pass to the new strategy of an
‘outstretched hand’. There was the
conviction that collaboration with the enemy would have brought about better
results more than fighting against it did. And John XXIII’s speech, the one
Cardinal Zen likes, was the magna charta
of the “détente” policy that he dislikes.
The first expression of
Ostpolitik, symbolized by the then [Secretary of State] Monsignor Casaroli, was
the “pledge” made by the Holy See to the Soviet government not to condemn
Communism in any form whatsoever. This was the condition requested by the
Kremlin in permitting the participation of observers from the Moscow patriarchy
at Vatican II.
There is no need
for great sagacity to understand that Ostpolitik toward Russia was fruit of a
precise political choice made by John XXIII and Paul VI, as the Ospolitik
towards China is fruit of Pope Francis’ political strategy. Secretaries of
State are executors of the indications given by Pontiffs and the Pontiffs
assume the responsibilities of the political choices made by the Holy See. In
this regard John XXIII and Paul VI, like Pope Francis today, have committed
significant pastoral and political errors.
It is not the first time that
this has happened in history. The ralliement
of Leo XIII to the third Masonic Republic was a devastating error and
historians today emphasize its grave consequences. Criticizing the strategic
and pastoral errors of a Pope, is however, legitimate and Cardinal Zen does so
when criticizing the Holy See’s politics of yesterday and today towards
Communism. Should anyone object by saying Popes are always guided by
the Holy Spirit, he might easily respond that a Pope can fall into error, as
has happened, and may still happen in history. And also we are convinced that
the Holy Spirit did not assist in the Ostpolitik of Pope Francis, but
enlightens Cardinal Zen’s criticism of Ostpolitik. If however a Pope can err, even more so this
can be applied to a Council, which
remains nonetheless a valid Council, Valid yes, but catastrophic, as was the
twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Church.
If, on the other hand, we must accept unquestioningly
the spirit and texts of this Council, we will be obliged to accept also
Francis’ politics regarding China, expressed in the words of Monsignor Marcelo
Sánchez Sorondo, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences: “Right now,
those who are best implementing the social doctrine of the Church are the
Chinese […]They hold the common good above all else, everything else comes
second to the common good". China
“is defending the dignity of the person”.6 And with admirable
China it is urgent to find the best relations.
Mons. Sánchez Sorondo
is one of Pope Francis’s trusted men
whereas Cardinal Zen was harshly criticized by the Vatican establishment for his position on the
agreement between the Holy See and Communist China. In the face of such criticism,
last February 29, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò wrote a letter of support to
Cardinal Zen wherein he points out
that: “The Vatican has done
everything and more to deliver the Chinese Martyr Church into the hands of the
Enemy: it did so by signing the Secret Pact; it did so by legitimizing
excommunicated “bishops” who are agents of the regime; it did so by the
deposition of legitimate bishops; it did so by forcing faithful priests to
register with a church that has succumbed to the Communist dictatorship; it
does so on a daily basis by keeping silent about the persecutory fury that has
gained unprecedented strength, precisely since the signing of that unfortunate
Agreement. It is now doing so with this ignoble letter to all the cardinals,
which is aimed at accusing you, denigrating you, and isolating you. Our Lord assures us that nothing and no one
will ever be able to snatch from His hands those who resist the infernal enemy
and his acolytes, conquering them “by the Blood of the Lamb” and by the testimony
of their martyrdom” (cf. Rev. 12:11).
Monsignor
Viganò is the same prelate, who, along
with Monsignor Athanasius Schneider, recently opened up a debate on the Second
Vatican Council. If Cardinal Zen does
not concur with the usefulness of this debate it would have been more prudent for him
to stay silent, as his declarations of unquestioning exaltation over Vatican II
will not gain him any supporter, but risk making him lose many and most
importantly, they offend the truth and undo the credibility of his sacrosanct
criticism of the Vatican Ostpolitik.
References:
Translation:
Contributor Francesca Romana
